I would like to, during boot, automatically load dhclient, dhcp3, aptitude update, aptitude autoclean, squid, and possibly a few others. i do not know how to modify the boot list and was wondering if i could get help in that regard. the reason i want to run these programs at boot and not login is because i would like to login with my server programs and full cluster running and all nodes to wake on lan automatically (which has been set up), so i don't have to bother with starting everything manually. also so i do not have to be logged in to serve my clients.

You'll need to create a small Bash script that starts each service and put that in the /etc/rc2.d directory as a sym-link from /etc/init.d Read the README file in the latter for further info.

- dhclient
configured in /etc/network/interfaces
Eg. If you have a line like
Add the line
- dhcp3
I'm assuming you mean the server, you may just need to edit your /etc/default/isc-dhcp-server
and list the interfaces you want it to listen on.
Additionally you may need to create the S symlink in rc2.d. You can use a tool like rcconf to do this.

- aptitude update, aptitude autoclean
You could hack this manually as suggested buy Dutch Master...

- squid
AFAIK this should start automatically. If it is not check the rc2.d symlinks (again you can use rcconf) and perhaps /usr/share/doc/squid/README.Debian.gz or similar.

- possibly a few others.
Check the documentaion that comes with the package (/usr/share/doc/packagename), in particular the README.Debian.gz file if it exists. This is the first place you should look for configuration info on any package you install. Also don't forget to check the symlinks in the rc2.d directory.


Cheers,

Evo2.

i made the link in rc.d directory, and now dhclient and dhcp3-server start correctly at boot. You were correct about squid. it does start automatically. I will not bother with aptitude. I can update the sources manually. thanks.